z.T. sehr schöne Stimmung, schöne Flächen; die Skinny Puppy mäßigen voice-samples die mein Vorgänger bemängelte stören mich nicht, im Gegenteil.

Einzig die zu banale Verwendung von vorprogrammierten Rhytmen stört stellenweise (Shattered light).

Pinned Beneath the Boiling Sky rolls over the listener like -- well, like a boiling sky. I've heard Sublinear before on a few compilations, and was hoping to get a full album at some point; finding it as a download was absolutely brilliant.

Things get off to a perfect start with "A Quiet Death;" as a Tom Waits fan, I was gratified and surprised to hear an odd version of the "Dirt in the Ground" riff ricocheting around in the background.

Other tracks that really amaze:

"Night of the Reptiles" has this fantastic foot-dragging beat to it; a bit like Scorn when Scorn got beaty, but with a bit more sass in the mix. It's a perfect zombie step-shuffle soundtrack, if that makes any sense.

"Fragility" is a stellar track that lays down atmosphere for the first half, then maintains it through an interesting changeover.

"Bloodworms" is wonderfully and relentlessly languid, positioned between two faster-moving tracks as a great change of pace.

"Our Weapons Are Useless Against Them" is a boatload of fun, a broad winking swipe at adventure music, horror films and toe-tapping beatrock.

Without trying to diminish Sublinear at all, "Pinned Beneath the Boiling Sky" runs almost like "Everything I Like About Mick Harris' Scorn And Post-Scorn Work But Condensed Into One Album." It's got atmosphere, it's got drone, it's got grind, but it also moves when it needs to and isn't afraid of curveballs.

If I have one quibble, it's with the semi-frequent clip-sampling -- I've got nothing against it generally speaking, but it sort of throws me back to the Skinny Puppy age of industrial music circa 1988, when everybody was taking chunks of audio from obscure films and tossing them into their songs. Mixed high, it feels like it's halfway between an interesting composition element and a crutch, and not always necessary. But that's a minor concern stacked against nearly an hour of stellar music.

Overall impression: good stuff. It's rare to find a free download that's better than 90% of the music in the shop, but this has really knocked my socks off.